Love the Way You Lie
by Stephane Richer
Summary: cause today that was yesterday yesterday is over it's a different day
1. Love the Way You Lie

Love the Way You Lie

Disclaimer: I don't own JK Rowling's Harry Potter or Eminem and Rihanna's "Love the Way You Lie"

He wakes up to the cold seeping in under the door and over his ankles stealthily like a frost or a murky river changing courses through his house, and of course she's on the other side. She's lying on the table, chest rising (he still hasn't, thank God, killed her yet—she says she's "magical" and yet she's so weak) and falling shallowly. The glass is still buried in her wrist, glinting in the sun shining through the holes in the tattered curtain in the kitchen. The blood has dried, and some of it is splattered on the table.

Better make her clean it up. It's all her fault. Well, no, to be perfectly honest, it's his, too. How much of it did he mean? What did he say? The hangover washes over him and he moans. He can't remember; he can never remember. It doesn't matter anyway. His head's spinning, but he tries.

Shadowy figures moving, merging, that's her. Gesturing wildly, oh, god, don't pull out that magic stick. He remembers seeing it in the pocket of her old jeans and throwing the bottle of scotch at her head, yelling that this time he'll kill her for real. Who's going to save her? The kid's back at that school and her parents are dead now. The manor's his to plunder, his to make even more derelict than before. He's going to break that goddamn stick if she doesn't get rid of it, but she just glares at him, weak but obstinate. He grinds her face into the table, grabbing the stick, and as he does, it's on fire, it's burning his hand, oh, God!

He blinks, staring at the swollen blister on his left palm.

She stirs. She rolls onto her back, exposing the black eye and broken nose. She picks up the stick from the ground and points it at her own face. _Is she going to kill herself now?_ To his surprise, a jet of light straightens the long nose, and she puts the stick down. He hasn't realized his heart is beating so fast, but when he begins to breathe easier he notices. She, in turn, notices his presence, turning her head to stare blankly.

She coughs, spitting a tooth into her hand. He winces. _I did this. _He's not sure her magic can fix this, but he hopes it can. He shoots her a weak smile, stands up (oh, God, the vertigo), and puts an arm around her. She doesn't reject it, and he helps her up and over to the bathroom, where he draws her a bath. Watching her naked and ashamed, cuts wracking her body, sitting emaciated on the toilet seat, crying, makes him bow his head. A minute (an hour?) later he hears the faucet turn off and the soft splashes of her entry. He stays. She might drown herself.

He doesn't let her out of his sight the whole day. They do the grocery shopping together, picking up cigarettes and milk and coffee, and he goes to find the eggs, and when he's back she's smiling (sort of) at a neighborhood man, and he grabs her roughly, muttering "I'll deal with you later," the truce called off.

What happened to the beautiful woman he married? Her vivacious eyes are dead, and no longer looking at him alone. She hauls off and punches him before he can even drop the grocery bags, and it takes him a few seconds to kick her in the stomach, because this is the liveliest she's been in a few years. They're back to kicking, punching, name-calling, throwing, but she doesn't use the magic. He's proud of her, his girl, for not fighting dirty.

In the middle of the night, he wakes up in time to hear the front door slam, and he gets up, still naked except for his socks, and trudges out to the driveway to investigate. She's got suitcases and is trying to hail a cab (at three in the morning? Well, their phone line did get cut off after he couldn't pay the bill anymore) and she doesn't hear him come up and grab her arm. She shakes him off and points the stick at him.

"I can't do this anymore. I quit."

"No, God damn it, no."

"Fuck you, yes I am." She flicks her stick, and he's sent sprawling across the gravel, wincing at the rocks cutting into his bare skin like arrowheads.

She turns back to the road and sticks out a hand (were they always that pale?) and this time he's ready. He walks stealthily up to her, snakes an arm around her chest, grabbing the stick and snapping it in two, throwing it into the street. He drags her, kicking and screaming, into the house, picking the lighter from her pocket and as he enters the kitchen, flicking it on and setting the door frame ablaze. The window, too, as an afterthought, never letting his arm leave her body. He turns on the stove, all six gas burners, and pins her against it. Her jacket is ablaze, the synthetic material responding immediately.

He holds her down and pulls down her skirt and tights, throwing them against the door frame, and they, too, immediately begin to smoke. He sics the lighter on his own unwashed hair, and starts fucking her against the stove. She screams, inhaling more and more smoke, and he remains silent, pounding into her as the blaze consumes them both.


	2. Part II

Part II

Disclaimer: I don't own JK Rowling's Harry Potter or Skylar Grey's Love the Way You Lie Part 2

She remembers her wedding day very clearly. He looked dashing and clean in a rented tuxedo. Her dress was pure white. Her family did not attend. They had kicked her out when she'd announced her engagement. What did they know? Muggle or not, he was the one for her. His family did, as did some of her Hogwarts friends. Her friends and his family couldn't be happier for the couple. Everything was perfect.

She remembers her son's birth. Things were still good between herself and her husband. They'd kissed and hugged the baby. They grinned at one another. Everything was still perfect.

Then, during her second pregnancy, she'd seen him flirting with a girl on the street and grabbed him, punched him, and yelled at him, relishing the terrified look on his face. But as she continued to yell, the fear hardened into anger, and he punched her back, kicked her in the stomach. She screamed. He clamped a hand over her mouth. "You don't want him to hear, do you?"

She bit him, and he threw her against the wall and into unconsciousness. When she woke up she had lost the baby. Everything was no longer perfect. It could never be perfect again.

She stopped eating. He started drinking. Their son fled. The boy no longer spent days in his mother's company. He came into work every day hung over. He was fired. She cried. He hit her.

She never used her magic on him. She had started this; she would keep it fair. She let the fighting take over her life. Her son was forgotten. Her friends' letters remain unanswered. Yet every time he comes home from the bar she is surprised he still hit her. Every time he apologizes half-heartedly she believes him.

She wants desperately to believe it could go back. Yet she also does not. She wants him to hit her, to throw the bottles, to bite and kick. She deserves it. It's all her fault. She lost the baby. She started it. Every time she falls, she hopes this is the time she dies. Every time he hits her, she waits for it to be the final blow. It never comes.

She loves to feel the pain. It is the one constant in her life. She no longer has parents to nag her, school to schedule her, a working husband to force a schedule around her, or a son around. It was as if he does not exist, and her world revolves around nightly battering. She'd heal the bruises and breaks every morning, and every night they'd return, worse than before.

Her voice has become a mess of random shouts, reserved for him and him alone. "Stop!" "I hate you!" "No!" All of them are weak and feeble, and none of them are true. They're just like his lies of apologies and caring. They're so shallow, both of them. Who are they pretending for? No one watches; no one sees. The glass shatters on her throat and all she can think of is how that's as close as it's come to a death blow, and immediately he's there.

She shoves him away and he starts to threaten, to say he'll really kill her this time. She knows it's a bluff; she's risen to his challenge and she's still here. He still wants her here. He always wants her with him. Even when he makes her clean the floor by hand, every last piece of the wine glasses he's shattered, it's something she'll do because he wants her. She needs him.

She's so sick, so twisted, so strange. People avoid her when she goes out, walking with a limp and tattered clothing. She looks sick and homeless, not rich and noble. That's what he's done to her. He's turned her into one of his own random, trashy muggles. She cries every night, but it's just part of the routine now. She doesn't feel it when she does. He'll always beat her with plenty of mercy, because that's part of whom he is.

She tries to leave. Really, she does. It's the last straw. She wills herself not to cry. She's got her wand. Does the Knight Bus still operate? Would it take someone in self-imposed exile, even if she was a Hogwarts gobstones champion? She sticks out a fist. A taxi will do.

As he stumbles out, she shoots him back. She's sick of it. She wants it all to end, and this is the quickest way. But she's not prepared for his further aggression; using magic again was just too much for her to focus on anything else. He snaps her wand, he grabs her, drags her back. He's setting the kitchen on fire, and she lets him. This is a better way to end things. This way is truly final, and they're together even as she scratches at him and he pounds into her. This is how they go down, fighting, together.


End file.
